Caught in Between Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright

  Chapter 1 - University Blues

  Chapter 2 - Who Needs Rules?

  Chapter 3 - Kade

  Chapter 4 - Drowning in the Gene Pool

  Chapter 5 - Mudslide

  Chapter 6 - The Makeover

  Chapter 7 - Nimble Be Quick

  Chapter 8 - Crazy Eyes

  Chapter 9 - There's Humiliation and Then There's Me

  Chapter 10 - Knives Cut Deep

  Chapter 11 - Firsts

  Chapter 12 - Jill

  Chapter 13 - D-Day

  Chapter 14 - Kringsly and Kissing

  Chapter 15 - Bad to Worse to Human?

  Chapter 16 - Decisions

  Chapter 17 - Pen

  Chapter 18 - Vampire Drama

  Chapter 19 - The Champ

  Chapter 20 - Stalled

  Chapter 21 - Day-What?

  Chapter 22 - Mystery Spot

  Chapter 23 - No Denying It

  Chapter 24 - Creepy and Cryptic is a Thing

  Chapter 25 - Hello Jefferson High

  Sneak Peek: Between Lies (Book 2)

  Letter to Readers

  About the Author

  Connect with Me

  Caught in Between

  Book 1 of The In-Betweens Series

  ~~~

  by Alison L. Perry

  DEDICATION

  For Haley

  Copyright © 2016 by Alison L. Perry

  All rights reserved.

  License Notes

  All rights reserved. This book or any other portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a review.

  The story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Editor: Nikki Busch Editing

  Cover designed by Vila Design

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-9985168-0-6

  Chapter 1 - University Blues

  I opened one eye and squinted at the glowing digits of the alarm clock next to my bed: 8:00 p.m. I groaned and for a minute I couldn’t remember why anyone would be up at this hour. Then it hit me. It was the first day of school. My first day at University.

  I groaned again and burrowed deeper under the covers, attempting to forget the horror that awaited me. As I lay there, trying to come up with some excuse for staying home, a loud knock on my door broke the brief silence.

  “Sadie!” my oldest brother, Nathan, shouted. “Time to get up. Mom wants you down in five.”

  I listened to his footsteps tapping down the hall as he walked away. Regret boiled inside me as I threw my blanket off and climbed out of bed. It was cold in my room and I shivered, hurriedly changing into a pair of pink pajama pants and a woolly pink robe. Knowing my mother meant it when she said five minutes, I didn’t even bother to glance in the mirror before leaving my room and heading downstairs.

  When I entered the kitchen, Nathan was sitting at the table wolfing down a bowl of cereal. At eighteen, he always seemed to be hungry. Mom liked to joke about him eating us out of house and home, but the affection in her voice was plain. He was the oldest and in my parents’ eyes could do no wrong.

  Sitting next to him were Sophia and Joshua, my ten-year-old siblings. They were twins, a surprise my parents hadn’t expected. With jet-black hair and enormous blue eyes, they gave off an air of innocence that others often called angelic. Using that to their advantage, the two had perfected the art of pranking, and despite knowing they were usually to blame, nobody could ever seem to catch them in the act.

  Then there was me. Stuck smack dab in the middle, caught in between and always overlooked.

  I sat in an empty chair across from Nathan and took a plate from the stack on the table. A pile of pancakes and crispy bacon beckoned to me, yet just as I started to reach for them, my mom set a glass of ruby-red blood in front of me.

  “Drink up!” she said, a smile on her pretty face. But there was an edge in her eyes that hinted at the fight she knew was coming.

  I gagged, and in my haste to push it away, knocked over the glass. Blood splashed across the tablecloth and dripped off the table, pooling onto the floor in a sticky mess. “Mom! You know I can’t…” I trailed off, unable to finish the sentence as I gulped for air. There was a loud buzzing in my ears and my vision started to turn fuzzy at the edges.

  I suppose I should mention that a glassful of blood at the breakfast table was nothing unusual. You see, we’re vampires, though to be fair, the term could only be loosely applied to me. I was everything a vampire was not supposed to be. For starters, I couldn’t stomach the sight or taste of blood, an oddity my mom had been trying to remedy for sixteen years.

  Mom blew out a breath as she grabbed a towel from the kitchen counter and started mopping it up. “Sadie, this is ridiculous. You’re going to have to get over this reaction to blood. You start University today!”

  She didn’t say the rest of what she was thinking, but the whole family knew it. My aversion to blood was just the start of what made me different from everyone else in my family. From everyone else in the whole vampire community. Nathan gave me a disgusted look and the twins snickered, whispering together in their secret language. I glared at all three, wishing for a wooden stake I could hurl at them. Except, knowing my luck, I’d probably miss and stake myself instead.

  “How about I don’t go to University,” I said hopefully. We lived in Jefferson, a small town in the bayous of East Texas. Back in its heyday, it was a major river port town, running steamboats back and forth to New Orleans. Today, it was known as the most haunted small town in Texas, a fact that kept the tourists pouring in, and in a nice twist, kept the vampires feeding. It was also home to Viktor Holstein’s University of Higher Learning, a finishing school our kind attended after turning sixteen. It was one of two in the state, and teen vampires from all over the area traveled to Jefferson to attend the prestigious school. There, we were supposed to learn and perfect the abilities that came along with our undead heritage. I say supposed to, because I’d been a misfit for sixteen years and was not convinced a couple of years at Viktor’s House of Horrors, or University as everyone called it, would change anything.

  Mom just looked at me with an expression that said “Don’t even bother” and turned around to get another glass from the cabinet. I sank down in the chair with my best pout. My appetite was gone, a big ball of nerves in its place. I knew I’d lost the battle.

  She came back to the table and plopped a handful of blood capsules down in front of me along with a glass of orange juice.

  “Take three now and pack the rest in your bag to take to school for lunch. You need to be ready to leave in thirty minutes. You’ll ride with Nathan.”

  Both Nathan and I opened our mouths to protest, but before either of us could get a word out, my father snapped the newspaper closed and slapped it on the table. The look on his face said it all and we froze in place, even the twins.

  “I’ve had enough of the antics. Sadie. Your mother is right. We’ve done everything we can to manage your problem with blood. We sympathize with you, but it’s becoming inconvenient to make those capsules.” He tapped his fingers on the table. “Not to mention, if you don’t start behaving like a normal vampire, it will be noticed at school. You’re going to have to find a way to drink from the source. Once this batch is gone, we won’t be making any more. It’s coming to an end, and so are your arguments against University. If anything can teach you how to be a proper vampire, it’ll ha
ppen there.” He turned his attention to Nate and leveled a steady gaze at him. “You will take your sister to school with you and show her the ropes. No ifs, ands, or buts. Have I made myself clear?”

  He waited until Nathan nodded and turned his eyes on me. I lowered my head and mumbled a soft “yes sir.” Satisfied, he picked the newspaper back up and was quickly lost in the obituary section.

  I slid lower in my chair, my appetite gone. My parents were acting like I could control my violent reaction to blood, but I knew they knew better. They’d been cleaning up after me forever. I was confused at their sudden theory that I was doing it on purpose.

  Sophia crossed her eyes at me and started giggling. She’d been witnessing these kinds of family discussions her whole life but had never been the target. A small flame of resentment flickered inside me. But I was distracted from it when Mom cleared her throat and shot me a warning look.

  I hastily swallowed my pills and headed upstairs to get ready, my feet coming down a tad harder on the stairs than necessary. Once I was back in the sanctuary of my room—a tribute to lime-green zebra print and boy band posters—I stood in front of the mirror and examined myself. My dirty blond hair was a ripple of waves that ended just below my shoulders, with long bangs that I constantly brushed out of my light blue eyes. Freckles (oh, how I hated them) dusted my nose and cheeks, and my naturally red lips rested in the pout I’d worn all summer. I was pale, like all vampires, but that is where the similarity ended.

  Instead of a sexy, stealthy, seductress, I was cute.

  Cute.

  Cute was not going to get me far at University. Cute would not provoke fear. Cute wouldn’t draw humans to me so I could seduce them into letting me feed on their blood.

  Not that I could drink from them, anyway. The thought made me shudder.

  I sighed and walked into my closet to get dressed. Not entirely sure what the expected dress code would be, I opted for my favorite pair of skinny jeans and a long-sleeved red top. I threw on a pair of black and white Chucks and stepped into the bathroom to brush my teeth, pull my hair into a ponytail, and smear on some lip gloss.

  I gave myself a last once-over in the mirror. It would do.

  “I’m leaving!” Nathan bellowed from the foyer.

  Grabbing my bag, I rushed downstairs and flew out the door before Nathan could even get his jacket on. As bad as it was having to ride with him to school, the thought of walking was worse.

  Grumbling underneath his breath, he followed me out and clicked the key fob to unlock the car. I slid into the front seat and flipped the radio to the local pop station. My phone was dead as I’d forgotten to charge it, so I was going to have to make do without it. Nathan rolled his eyes when Taylor Swift came blaring out of the speakers, but he didn’t say anything.

  As we pulled away from the curb, I spotted our next-door neighbor wheeling his recycle bin down to the curb. He waved a brief hello and I waved back. My parents’ Persuasion had worked remarkably well on our neighborhood. As they told it, when they bought the house, they threw a huge party and used that time to convince all the neighbors to ignore our odd hours and comings and goings. Most vampires lived in neighborhoods like ours and did the same. Occasionally, the Persuasion would wear off and had to be redone, but for the most part, Jefferson had little to no idea we were even here.

  We drove not speaking to each other. I passed the time watching historic mansions and tall trees flash by. It had been raining all day and drops of water sprinkled down from the leaves above. Butterflies swarmed in my stomach and the closer we came to the school, the more I felt like throwing up. I tried to take Taylor’s advice and “Shake It Off,” but by the time we pulled through the massive iron gates, I was a shaking mess instead.

  Nathan parked in one of the two student lots and bounded out of the car. A group of guys three cars down yelled out to him and he trotted over, flashing me a quick wave good-bye.

  “Great,” I mumbled to myself. There went my guide.

  I took my time getting out and arranging the long strap of my bag over my body, taking in the campus and its surrounding grounds. A huge plantation house, several stories tall, stood in the middle of the property and a steady stream of kids were going in and out its front doors. There were several more buildings close by, linked together by ivy-covered walkways, so the whole thing looked like one massive structure. A huge fountain stood out front.

  I was swept along in a wave of more students heading toward the main house, all of them chatting and laughing together, confident in their purpose for being there. Most of them were dressed in muted colors and a style much dressier than mine. I stood out like a sore thumb in my bright cherry shirt, and my palms began to sweat. But, before I could get too freaked out, I heard someone yell my name.

  “Sadie!”

  I turned around and saw my best friend, Molly, jostling her way through the crowd toward me. Relief flooded my body and for the first time since waking up, I smiled.

  “Thank God you’re here,” I said, grabbing her hand and squeezing it tightly. She squeezed back and threw her arms around me in a giant hug. She’d been visiting her grandparents all summer, and to our dismay, they had taken away her cell phone. Something about “newfangled technology” ruining social interactions and “they weren’t going to be party to that.” We’d been limited to one phone call a week, and most of that had been taken up with Molly’s complaints about being bored to death.

  “Molly, you’re choking me…” I gasped.

  She let go, took a step backward, and studied me for a moment, taking in my clothing, lack of makeup, and the marked despair on my face.

  “You look awful.” She was blunt as always. “I was hoping you’d stumbled into a cosmetics store over the summer. And maybe someplace other than Old Navy.”

  I rolled my eyes. I was used to her less-than-tactful comments, and frankly, she could afford to talk. Dressed in a silvery-gray pencil dress with a thin black belt around her waist, knee-high black dress boots, and simple gold jewelry, she was svelte and sophisticated. Everything I wasn’t.

  “I don’t know why I’m here. We both know this is going to be a disaster.” I sighed, wishing I was back home in bed with my iPod and a tub of mint chocolate-chip ice cream.

  She gave me a brief look of sympathy, but it faded into her typical no-nonsense expression.

  “Well, you’re here, doll, so you might as well make the best of it. C’mon. I think all freshman are meeting in the Great Hall for orientation and to pick up our class schedules. We should hurry.”

  I looked around us and realized most of the crowd had made it inside already. Panicked at the idea of walking in late, I turned to catch up with Molly, but my right foot landed in a pile of mud and started to slide away from me. Scrambling to gain my footing, I felt my other foot hit something soft… and I was falling. I squeaked when I hit the ground, horrified at what had just happened.

  Molly turned around and froze. She dipped her chin, allowing her bob to swing downward across her face and I saw her shoulders start to shake.

  “Are you laughing?” My voice rose a notch with indignation.

  She didn’t say anything at first, appearing to struggle to catch her breath. I glared at her from my seat in the mud. Another minute passed before she finally pulled herself together and took a deep breath.

  “Are you okay?” It was more of a rhetorical question since it’s difficult to actually harm a vampire, but being my best friend and all, I think she felt it was necessary protocol to ask.

  “What do you think?” I replied crossly.

  I tried to stand up, but my foot slipped again, forcing an “oof” out of me as my bottom hit the ground for a second time.

  This time Molly didn’t even try to hide her giggling, but she did grab my arm to help me stand. As soon as I was on my feet, I twisted to look at the back of my jeans, and my heart sank. Mud covered me from waist to ankle and I moaned softly as I surveyed the damage.

  “Are you freak
in’ kidding me?” I said. “I can’t go in there looking like this!” I was pissed that my clumsiness was already working its mojo. “What kind of first impression am I going to make?” I glared at Molly, not expecting an answer. She was still trying to control her snickering, and my annoyance turned toward her. “I’m so glad you’re finding this amusing,” I snapped.

  She rearranged her face into a serious expression. “Okay, I’m done. Sadie, I’m sorry I laughed. It’s just...” she trailed off and tried again. “I’ve known you since The Nursery, and seeing you in the mud looking so deflated, well, it’s just so… you, and I couldn’t help myself.”

  I could tell she was truly sorry for laughing, and I sighed. She was right. Only I could come to University on the first day and make a fool of myself before I’d even entered the building.

  “C’mon, let me take a look at the damage.” She spun me around and sucked back an oath when she saw my backside. “It’s a little bleak, but maybe we can hide some of it. Do you have anything with you that you can tie around your waist?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” I mumbled, digging through the contents of my cavernous bag. I pulled out a large black sweatshirt. Molly grabbed it from me and started wrapping it around my hips. A bell sounded from the main building, and an explosion of nerves shot through me.

  “Hurry, Molly! I don’t want to walk in there like this with everyone already settled in.” I moaned again, my anxiety creeping higher in a suffocating wave.

  “I’m going as fast as I can, Sadie. But there’s only so much I can do with this.” She tugged on the sleeves here and there and finally stepped back to get the overall picture. “Well, this will have to do. At least the sweatshirt covers most of your butt and upper legs. The rest will just have to show.”

  The calmness in her voice flowed over and through me like silk, and my heart rate started to slow down. Molly had nearly perfected the art of Persuasion, and even though vampires were supposed to be immune to its power, somehow I always succumbed when she focused her hypnotic tone on me. I had to admit, I was usually grateful for it, but it always worried me a little that I was, once again, different from other vampires.